Monday, November 25, 2013

Faith Flicks: Life of Pi

Sermon from November 24th, 2013

If someone came to you and said they had
a story that would make you believe in God, you would listen wouldn’t you. That’s the setup for the book and movie Life
of Pi.

Life
of Pi is another book made into movie.
The book was written by Yann Martel and it’s a book for which he won
numerous literary honors. I read the
book about 5 years ago and I loved it.
So I was excited when I saw that a movie was being made about it. The movie came out around this time last year
and won 4 Academy awards. Like most book
to movie adaptations, the book is better.
However, they did an incredible bringing the book to the big
screen. This is one of the best book to
movie adaptations that I have seen.

The story is about a boy named Pi
who grows up in India and as a young teenager claims to be a Hindu, Christian
and Muslim all at the same time. Pi’s
father owns a zoo but financially things are hard. So the father sells the zoo and they are
shipping the animals to Canada on a Japanese Cargo ship which sinks and Pi
finds himself on a life boat with a Hyena, Orangutan, Zebra and Bengal
Tiger. As you can probably imagine it
comes down to two survivors: Pi and the Tiger who is named Richard Parker.

The story is told from the
perspective of a writer who had discovered from a family member that Pi had a
story that would “make him believe in God.”
So as the older Pi tells his story to this author, the book and movie
flashback to what was actually taking place.
Eventually Pi washes up on the shores of Mexico, 227 days after the ship
sank and recounts 2 versions of the story to the Japanese Owners of the boat
who want to know what happened to their boat. Pi offers the same facts but with
two different interpretations.

In the first version, Pi is the sole
human survivor on a lifeboat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan and a huge Bengal
tiger called Mr. Parker. The second has no animals and is far more brutal. One
requires suspension of disbelief; the other is “reasonable”. When they ask him which one is true he asks
them which one is better? They tell him
which one they think is better and Pi says “so it is with God.” Which leaves the audience and the reader wide
open to interpret the message the author intended.

You have to be prepared to choose to
walk away from the “reasonable” interpretation to accept the better story. To have faith. In the film, Pi retells the story and
convinces two skeptics to overcome one of the largest barriers to faith –
believing in the unbelievable. One of those characters does claim in the end
that he does believe in God.

So the idea with the movie is that
believing in God is purposeful and beautiful and and a better story whether
it’s true or not…it’s not the point…the point is to have faith in something
that you can’t prove but that offers something that human beings need: like
hope, like love, like purpose and meaning.
The author is not so worried about whether or not a religion is true…but
whether or not religion offers humanity a better story of how to live life.

So while I could tell you all day long
that that there are enough extra-biblical texts, literature outside of the text
of the Bible, that points to the historicity of the life, death and yes resurrection
of Jesus Christ, I can’t prove it to you.
I could tell you that the one piece of data that keeps me believing in
Christianity on a rational , fact based level is the actions of the disciples
before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus gets arrested his disciples are
hiding behind locked doors. They are
worried and scared doing what they can to disassociate themselves with Jesus
because they don’t want to be arrested either.
After the resurrection all of a sudden these same disciples who were
scared and worried and hiding because they feared for their lives…now all of a
sudden they are willing to die because of their faith. Something as big and supernatural as the
resurrection of Jesus Christ would have had to have happened for them to do a
total 180 and not worry about their own lives.
So I believe that Jesus is who he said he was and that there is some
historical data that backs that up.
However, I could never prove the resurrection to anyone without a shadow
of a doubt.

I want to explore the question
that’s asked in Life of Pi…is the better story to believe in God or not believe
in God. Just for a few minutes let’s not
worry about whether or not the story is true…let’s look at it through the lens
of which story is better: a God or no God?

At let me tell you, I don’t ever
remember a time when I didn’t believe in God…so this is really hard for me to
do. But here’s what I imagine would be
my thoughts and questions if I did live life believing that God does not
exist.

If there is no God then it stands to
reason that everything in creation is by natural evolution apart from
intelligent design. So that I could
still enjoy the beauty of creation but I would wonder about the purpose of
creation. My question would be does creation
have meaning? One of my favorite books
is called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.
The tagline is “Nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality.” It’s an awesome and easy read that was made
into a movie in 2012. In the movie the
main character Don is attending a debate about whether or not God exists. He asks the atheist who is debating there is
no God about meaning. The man says “The
universe doesn't owe us meaning, son. If you want meaning, I suggest you try a
dictionary.” If there is no God it is
hard to find meaning, to find purpose.
Love can be a purpose…but are we ourselves the source of that love? Doing good things can give us purpose, but
isn’t there something more to this life than just doing good? Do we find ultimate purpose and meaning in
love and in doing good things in and of themselves.

I believe in God and find myself
thinking that there is more to this life than what I am currently experiencing,
I think that angst and search for meaning and purpose would be hyped up even
more if I didn’t believe in God.

Another thing about this is that I
think it takes more faith to believe God does not exist than it does to believe
that God does exist. For example let’s
say you are invited to someone’s house for dinner. You enter the dining room and laid before you
is a beautiful, aromatic spread of food.
Does it take more faith to believe that no one prepared that food or that
someone prepared that food? You didn’t
actually see anyone making the food and putting it on the table so how do you
know someone actually made it? What if a
small tornado came through the kitchen and dining room and what formed is what
is found on the table? That takes more
faith than the simple idea that whoever invited you to dinner actually took the
time to make the food and put it on the table for you to enjoy.

Which is the better story…that
someone prepared the food for you to enjoy or that it came about randomly? Which story is more meaningful? Now I know that there are problems with that
analogy, but it’s just an analogy.

My point is this: whatever we
believe, whether in something or in nothing, whatever we choose will take
faith. Whatever we believe will lead to
unanswered and unanswerable questions.
Whatever we choose to believe or not believe will require us to be okay
with mystery. Whatever we choose to
believe will shape our values and the way we live our lives. Whether Christianity is true or not, I think
it is a better story.

The story that there is a God who
loves us enough to send his only son as a demonstration of His love is a beautiful
story that gives meaning and purpose to life.
The idea that the Holy Spirit is present with us in the midst of a
cancer diagnoses or an unwanted divorce …that’s a better story. The solidarity that God has with his creation
because he chose to become one of us…he doesn’t just think he knows what it
means to suffer…he became one of us and suffered just like us and he knows what
it means to suffer and that’s why one day he’s going to make everything
right…that’s the better story. That when
we lose a loved one unexpectedly we can trust that we have a God who knows and
understands grief and doesn’t take the grief away, but see’s us through so that
we come to the other side of those hard and intense emotions with softer heart for others who have lost a loved
one. That’s the better story.

I
want to read John 1:1-18. I’m not going
to teach this text this morning, I’m sure a time will come when I do dig in and
really teach what John is saying in these words. But this morning, I want you to rest and
relax and let these words sink in as something beautiful and meaningful and
good. I want these words to sink in this
morning as the better story. As
something you just receive as you hear them.
Something good and life-giving and restoring to your soul. Will you hear the word. Read
John 1:1-18:

1 comment:

John Latz, M.D.
said...

Wow - you know I just saw that movie about a month ago and it was transformative - really showed that perception can mean everything. As a sidebar, I took my boys to see the Hunger Games Catching Fire and now can't wait for the last movie in that series. Great writing Pastor Rich! Definitely sharing it with my family.

About Me

I serve as lead pastor of Covenant Community Church located in Asheville, NC. I am surrounded by a talented staff who make leading fun and exciting.
I'm married to a woman who has the most natural and genuine interest in people's lives of anyone I've ever known.
I get to father two beautiful daughters who make me laugh almost everyday.
In the little bit of me time I have I enjoy playing video games (especially Dota 2), watching movies, cheering on the Panthers (even when they were 1-16), playing tennis, basketball and eating at Chic-fil-a (seriously, I think its my favorite restaurant).